Building Safety Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Kate Osborne and Daisy Cooper

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

Q My question is really aimed at Sarah, given her expertise. The Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to regulate construction products. Does it contain enough information about the new regime, and is there enough certainty about what products or type of products will be regulated?

Dr Colwell: An initial reading of the Bill in its current form suggests that the answer is no. Work will be required to ensure that we are clear on the standards being applied and how those are being used in the framework. We also need provision for going from testing to third-party certification, to ensure that we have the provenance following through on the products being used and the context in which they are being used.

The Bill lacks a little clarity. As mentioned earlier, the detail will probably have to sit in a secondary framework if we are to ensure that we get to the level of implementation that gives us a clear playing field.

[Daisy Cooper]

Q To take you back to the previous question, James, you were asked whether building insurance would go up or down. In short, the answer was that it would likely go down for the new builds, but there is a question mark over historical buildings because of liability insurance. You said that you do not know how we resolve this problem between the six and the 15 years. From your experience in the industry, if there was to be litigation to try to determine an answer to that, how long would you expect that to take, and how expensive do you think it might be?

James Dalton: May I comment briefly on the buildings insurance point? I should have been clearer in my answer and said, “All other things being equal.” I do not know what the insurance premium tax will be on the commission of buildings insurance, or what the wider regulatory environment will be like, tomorrow, next year or in five years’ time. All other things being equal, the Bill should, overall, decrease the cost of buildings insurance. It is a very difficult question to answer.

As I said in my previous answer, some insurance policies will be clear. There will be some insurance policies where the businesses in question that were insured no longer exist, for whatever reason. The question then becomes how those affected leaseholders and/or building owners will exercise their rights under the extension. To answer your question, in my experience insurance litigation can be complex, expensive and lengthy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Osborne]

Q We talked about the height of buildings, but, once built, a higher-risk building only remains within the scope of the regime if it has at least two residential units. What are your thoughts on that? Should it be restricted only to buildings that people live in?

Mr Wrack: There are other regulations covering office buildings. One big thing that has been highlighted by Grenfell is the difference in standards between high-rise residential blocks and an office block of an equivalent size.

In an office block, you would have far different fire safety measures, including two stairwells, regular fire safety drills and so on. Those do not exist in purpose-built blocks of flats, because those blocks were designed to deliver compartmentalisation—they were built to contain the fire within the flat of origin. What has happened in recent years is that that has broken down. I think that residential blocks are different from non-residential blocks. Whether two is the right number, I do not know.

[Daisy Cooper]

Q I could hear the frustration in your voice when you said that the Fire Brigades Union has, effectively, been a bit of a lonely voice in trying to raise awareness and concerns over the fact that, while there have perhaps been fewer fires, those fires have been spreading faster. Do you think that some kind of standing committee, or a mechanism where best practice and horizon scanning can take place on a regular basis, would be the answer or is there something else that could happen?

Mr Wrack: That sort of structure is precisely what is needed. The post-war legislation effectively created the modern fire service. It introduced such a body, called the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council. It included the Home Office, the inspectorate, chief fire officers and the trade unions. We had a very close relationship with researchers at what became the BRE, the fire service college. It was a joined-up way of thinking about the risks of fire, but was eventually criticised for supposedly being slow. Looking back, I think that criticism was very badly placed. I look at how they responded to a fire in 1958 where firefighters were killed; within weeks, guidance was issued.

I must say that it takes much longer today to get a change, and firefighters on the ground are hugely frustrated at the slow pace of change post-Grenfell. In the 1970s, we did have bodies that were looking at the emergence of high-rise blocks of flats, and their implications on fire safety and firefighting. We do not have those anymore.

Then Grenfell came along. We had warning signs. We had cladding fires in Melbourne and Europe. My own union came to the House after a fire in 1999 to warn about cladding systems, so as long ago as 1999 we were making warnings about the new systems that were being put on blocks of flats, which created the risk of the fire spreading up the outside of the building, yet in the intervening years very little has been done to address that risk; to improve the knowledge on the part of firefighters on the ground; or in any way to prepare for what that might mean for the people living in those blocks of flats.

There has been a complete lack of joined-up thinking for more than two decades on fire safety, and I appeal to people to think about how that could be put right.